Music
Humanizing Our Visions: Reflections on September 11Ali Jihad Racy

I would
like to begin with an excerpt from the Prophet by Kahlil Gibran,
a poet who came from Lebanon, the country where I was born:

And a woman spoke, saying, Tell us of Pain.
And he said:
Your pain is the breaking of the shell that encloses your understanding.

In the wake of
the painful and utterly shocking events that occurred on September
11, we ponder as well as mourn. Those of us who study peoples
musics and cultures may wonder about the relevance of what we do.
We may doubt our roles or feel helpless and marginalized. However,
I wish to propose that amidst a climate of violence, pain, and mistrust,
the substance of our study can both uplift us and deepen our perceptions
of ourselves and the world we live inor, to quote Gibran again,
break the shell that encloses our understanding.

Events of the
magnitude we experienced on September 11 tend to intensify our feelings
and reactionsthat is understandable. This intensification may
occur through the different phases we supposedly go through under
such circumstances: namely, disbelief, shock, rage, grief, and finally
reflection. As we look back, we notice that what happened in September
led to bad stereotyping and, in some cases, to terrible hate crimes;
but it also led to remarkable stories of compassion. During the few
days following the attack, I hesitated to go out joggingfearing
insult, or even worsefor reasons that are beyond my own creation.
However, I was also heartened by numerous phone calls from concerned
friends, neighbors, former students, and fellow musicians. I am reminded
of a story that I heard recently about a Native American grandfather
who was talking to his grandson about how he felt in the wake of the
recent tragedies. He said, I feel as if I have two wolves fighting
in my heart; one is the fearful, angry, revengeful one; the other
is the compassionate, peace-loving one. The grandson asked him:
Which wolf will win the fight in your heart? The grandfather
answered: The one I feed.

As an ethnomusicologist
and Lebanese-American, I have tried to bring about a better understanding
of a specific world region. Through my research on funeral laments
in Lebanese rural communities, including my own village and birthplace,
I know well how sadness affects people, how music and poetry enable
human beings to cope and come to terms with their fragile existence.
In my lectures on the role of music in Islamic mysticism, as represented
by various Sufi sects, I have highlighted two underlying universal
principles, namely, Unity of Beingor that holiness is in everybody,
and Divine Loveor that love as a primary link between humans
and the Divine, and among humans themselves. Similarly introduced
in my lectures, is musics transcendent power and its key role
in achieving the mystical state; or, as the eleventh-century mystic
al-Ghazali stated, its ability to soften the soul and cause it to
yearn. Furthermore, in my various writings on secular Arab music,
I have spoken extensively on tarab, the ecstatic state that
music evokes in listeners, an aesthetic experience that seems both
abstract and visceral.

In this country,
the aftermath of the attacks prompted numerous noteworthy developments.
As it seems, there has been a new interest in the world around us,
as shown, for example, by the numerous television reports and documentaries
on Islam and Muslims. Some books on the Middle East, especially on
the Arab world, have been among the nations bestsellers. The
media seems a bit more willing to listen to academic specialists,
including those who have had direct experience with the cultures concerned.
More individuals are becoming interested in global issues, and are
trying to understand and critically assess our countrys foreign
policy.

However, these
events have also highlighted musics role in our lives, and led
to a certain discourse on the role of the arts at times of crisis.
After the attacks in New York, National Public Radio interviewed the
host of a music radio-program about listeners subsequent musical
requests. In the interview it was made clear that music occupied a
primary niche in listeners psyche, although for a couple days
right after the attacks music programming was discontinued. Musical
choices were both personal and subjective; yet, some patterns were
obvious. For example, many requested music to fit their state of mourningSamuel
Barbers Adagio
for Strings was listened to again and again. Quite a few wished
to hear Beethovens music, which they treated as a sort of prayer,
while some listeners requested works by Mahler, among other composers.
But others also found solace in Beatles songs, in jazz, and
in various popular genres. Meanwhile, a special CNN report entitled
Terror and Art, documented the arts focal position
in the wake of the attacks. A female singer, Sherry Watkins, was interviewed
about a song that, we are told, just poured out of her the day
after the terrorists struck. The singer notes, Those words
didnt come from me. They just came through me. I was just a
gate. Others interviewed in the report stress that artists are
sometimes motivated by the most horrific occurrences. It is similarly
shown that after the shock, school children expressed their feelings
by painting the images they had seen repeatedly, a creative process
that served an important cathartic purpose.

As I watched
and heard recent broadcasts from the local media, and from the Middle
East via satellite, I was interested in finding out what music does
amidst the climate we are experiencing today. As I saw it, during
the five weeks or so following the attacks, music operated on at least
two broad and closely related levels. The first can be characterized,
in general terms, as psychological transformation. The second follows
the dictum of e pluribus unum, or out of
many comes one, which underlies the repeatedly shown television
advertisement in which members of different ethnic groups utter the
expression, I
am an American! in their own English accents and mannerisms
of speech. On the first level, or that of psychological transformation,
music addresses three emotional domains: a) mourning, or the exteriorization
of the painful sense of loss or grief; b) the need to be emotionally
uplifted or reconnected mentally and socially; and c) a sense of reassurance,
recovery, and strength. On the second level, namely of oneness
in diversity, music has been used to evoke an encompassing sense
of usas a union of diverse ethnic, religious, and
cultural groups, and globally as a world community with basic ties
and commonalties. In both cases, however, musics efficacy stemmed
not only from its acquired symbolic connotations, but also from its
inherently flexible or even abstract message. In light of such flexibility
and abstractness, musical expressions were often recontextualized,
reoriented, and reinterpreted in creative and highly affective ways.

My observations
are inspired by several music related highlights. In an official ceremony
in London a few days after the tragedy, the Buckingham Palace guards,
whose bright red uniforms contributed to their unmistakably British
image, were ordered to play the Star-Spangled Banner before
the British anthem as a gesture of support for the American people.
[Click here for Quick
Time example, 6 MB download size; click here for Real
Audio example.] Some Americans among the spectators wept, and
as soon as the performance ended the tearful listeners applauded with
tremendous enthusiasm. In a large outdoor ceremony that New York and
its mayor organized as a tribute to the victims, the program presented
a religious, ethnic, and artistic microcosm of our nation. Placido
Domingos performance of Schuberts Ave
Maria was followed by a variety of presentations, including
a call to prayer by an African American Muslim. The local musical
mannerisms through which this religious expression was rendered, added
to its symbolic significance. This was followed by chanting
from the Quran, delivered by a Philippino reciter. The
ceremony ended with Mark Antonys America
the Beautiful, a finale that roused dramatic enthusiasm,
a surge of ecstasy that caused the thousands of flag waving spectators
to rise in thunderous applause. By and large, this ceremony appeared
to evoke both a sense of individuality within unity, and to create
a gradual but dramatic feeling of emotional transformation.

Global statements
were also made. For example, the use of U2s music video One
as a closing segment for a Larry King CNN program about a month after
the attack, brought to mind a statement made by Bono (U2s frontman)
in Time Magazine: Rock music can change things. I know
it changed our lives. Rock is really about the transcendent feeling.
There is life in the form (53). U2s music video presented
a sound track accompanying a collage of some twenty-eight film shots
taken in different parts of the world: including Washington, DC, Beijing,
Tijuana, Marakesh, Tibet, Jerusalem, Cairo, Sidney, and ending in
New York City. With such expressions as Were one, but
were not the same, and You got to carry each other,
One! the text is set to a melody that seems symbolically fitting
through its active harmonic movement and its consistent dynamic flow.

A comparable
statement came from the Middle East. A short music video broadcast
from a major Lebanese TV station in Beirut during the few weeks following
the attacks, expressed sympathy with the American people. It displayed
two separate small frames, subtitled New York, 2001, and
Beirut, 1982, both captions superimposed upon the image
of a flowing American flag. The two frames simultaneously showed black
and white film scenes of the New York attack and of Beirut during
the civil war, a few years following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon.
The graphic and strikingly shocking depictions of destruction and
suffering victims in both frames were accompanied by an excerpt from
Fragile,
a song from Stings new CD recorded on September 11 and dedicated
to the memory of the attack victims. We hear, That nothing comes
from violence, and nothing ever could. For all those born beneath
an angry star, lest we forget how fragile we are. The music
video closes with the following written statement: We are joined
in sympathy for the innocent and in our condemnation of the deeds
beyond imagining  Underneath it says, the People
of Lebanon.

Such musical
manifestations allow us to understand the importance of music in our
lives, even when we feel threatened, distressed, or alienated. Certainly,
music can serve a wide variety of agendas. Examples from different
historical periods and from contexts familiar to us today show that
music is frequently used toward selfish, antisocial, and belligerent
ends. Yet we also link music to aspects of our existence that are
most universal and most human, including our fears and vulnerabilities,
our hopes, and triumphs. In this latter sense, music can humanize
the worlds visions of us, as well as humanize our visions of
ourselves.